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Tuesday, January 31, 2017

I've come to believe that my grandmother literally poisoned those around her.

When I was four or five, sometimes I'd walk into my grandmother's bedroom to find her weeping. She'd be sitting on the side of the bed, going through boxes of tissues. I don't believe this was a side of herself she shared with other people; she may have felt we had a cosmic bond because I had her father's name as my middle name and his fair features. She was crying for Martha, her daughter, who died of melanoma at the age of 28. Ten years later, after Norman—her youngest child, my uncle—died, also at 28, she would weep for him.

People were always dying around Grandma—her children, her husbands, her boyfriend—so her lifelong state of grief was understandable. To see her sunken in her high and soft bed, enshrouded in the darkness of the attic, and surrounded by the skin-and-spit smell of old age, was to know that mothers don't get what they deserve. Today, when I think back on it, I don't wonder whether Grandma got what she deserved as a mother; I wonder whether she got what she deserved as a murderer.

A few months ago, I loaded the wife and kids into the car and went out to visit Grandma. I hadn't seen her in more than a year and a half, and in that time she had moved from her house to an assisted-living place to another assisted-living place. There was no good excuse for my lapse—I guess I couldn't quite deal with the way we'd left her house. A catastrophe. Full of stuff. The buyers said they'd take care of it, and they did; they tore the whole thing down. My brother had a friend from the neighborhood (out on Long Island, a.k.a. Lawng Islund) who said it was the scandal of the year.

That house, where I spent so much of my childhood visiting Grandma, was disgusting. In the late 90s, my brother and I dedicated three days to cleaning it up. Joe, my grandmother's last boyfriend, had died, and his stuff was there. He was one of five dead people whose stuff was there, was everywhere. My aunt's stuff, my uncle's stuff, my grandfather's stuff, and Grandma's second husband's stuff filled, I'd estimate, about half the total volume of the house. Driver's licenses and important papers and half-finished projects and mementos like the rusted bolts my uncle Norman, on his diving trips, had dragged out of sunken wrecks. In the basement library, we uncovered a vial of red viscous fluid. The vial, sealed with a hard wax or plastic, was handblown and quite beautiful, and the box was neatly jointed hardwood. We thought the thing might be valuable. It could have been old—we weren't sure. So we tried to sell it to an East Village curiosity shop, which advised that we dispose of it via the Poison Control Center.

In the basement's woodshop we found a sprinkling of half-melted heroin spoons (Grandma had let some pretty questionable characters crash with her), and in the backyard we found a big black garbage bag full of dead animals. You could tell it was animals from the outside of the bag; you could see the shapes of the corpses. We both peeked in but were so quick about it that all we confirmed was the presence of dead bodies, not what kind. My brother says he saw turtles, which seems likely, since my mother had owned half a dozen turtles that all perished in a sudden, inexplicable cataclysm. I saw an owl, which is less likely, but also possible, since there are owls on Lawng Islund. Most likely, we decided, the bag was full of cats and raccoons, which were always getting into Grandma's garbage. She'd yell at them from the back porch. The last time I saw the bag it was on the lawn waiting for the trash pickup. In the shining black plastic you could still see the rounded shapes of haunches.

In that house, even the stuff worth keeping was depressing. Once-beautiful oak rocking chairs and cherrywood secretary desks had been covered with white porch paint. Bookshelves were lined with mouse-eaten library cast-offs. The carpets were thriving with mold. Dishes were stained or flecked with dried food. The toilets were full, unflushed, and dusted with baby powder. Grandma would say not flushing saved money, but really, she just wanted to remind you that everything was about saving money.

In Grandma's defense, she came to consciousness during the Great Depression and never mentally left the era. When the economy turned sour, in the 90s and 00s, she would point out the cultural similarities, laying it all out: During times of scarcity there's a turn to mystical thinking, self-help, and the occult, she'd tell us. I have no doubt that she was right. Even in her old age, she was insightful and informed. She'd rattle around her disgusting house with public radio blaring in every room. She knew everything, for instance that prune juice could be employed as hair dye (to this day, her hair is prune-brown). She had heard a dentist advise on NPR that it was very important to rinse your mouth out with water and to floss, even if you didn't have a chance to brush your teeth, and as of this writing she's 94 and still has all her teeth in her head. Only now they're all loose. Her whole jaw looks like it's loose in her mouth.

When we went to visit her at the assisted-living place, I fixed her hearing aids, and my wife went out to get some adult diapers. Grandma barely knows who I am, and when I asked her about her children, she didn't remember Martha at all. I hadn't exactly missed her during those months of not visiting, so I didn't expect the visit to upset me. But Grandma not knowing Martha's name, Grandma lying in bed sucking on her unmoored jaw, Grandma with all of her teeth about to fall out—I almost lost it. The kids sat there, unblinking, their mouths hanging open in stupefied horror. For them, the last year has been a tour of deathbeds: Gigipop. Poppa. Abuelita. Granmaman. And now Grandma. It was obvious—she was next.

They managed to buck up when Grandma asked them to sing. They knew some German songs from school, and she joined in. She said that when she sings she returns to her childhood. She lives in it, she said, like it's the present moment. And maybe in her mind, when she sings, her childhood is still there—but I don't think there's much else there. Sometimes she points to her head and jokes about her "forgettery."

It's strange to see a parental figure get like that. As a kid, I'd stay at Grandma's house so my too-young parents could get a break, often for weeks at a time. She'd tell me that Jews invent things, that Jews don't drink, that Jews are smart because the philosophy of the Jews values thinking, and that I'm not supposed to call them Jews. She would say, "Even when we argue, you have a good mind." When I announced my engagement to a Gentile, Grandma dropped to her knees and begged me not to get married in a church. The wedding took place on a tennis court, and Grandma was the belle of the ball, flirting with my wife's uncles, who were 20 years younger than she was. Grandma was always a good time, but when she wasn't the host, wasn't responsible for the food, it was like a weight was lifted from her, like she could really be free.

Grandma's expertise in nutrition dates back to the 60s. By the mid 70s, she had written several self-published mimeographed books on nutritional intake and vitamins. Around then or possibly earlier, I think, she started to poison people.

I can't pin down exactly what she did with what ingredients. I can't even be sure that she really did the things I think she did. All I have, really, are pieces of circumstantial evidence and hunches that have coalesced over the years. In my narrative of suspicions, she preferred to use vitamin A (which can cause sleepiness, blurred vision, and nausea, among other things), then she used laxatives, and then, as she got older and lazier, she moved on to prescription drugs.

Grandma never cooked the same thing twice, and her creations were greasy beyond belief and usually really weird. For example: chicken baked with apricots and canned tomatoes, or mixed-up ground meats with prunes, or pickled things. She was infamous at the local grocery store. They saved the shark livers for her.

In later years, her meals featured courses of ready-made, or nearly ready-made, food, and eventually that became her favored methodology. She had this effective strategy of finding the food you loved most, buying it in ridiculous amounts, and feeding it to you unrelentingly. You'd eat it—the imported Jarlsberg, the ice cream. And you'd pass out on the couch, or on the train back to the city. Of course, the longer you stayed with Grandma, the more likely something bad would happen to you. If you visited her for a week, you'd suffer from the shits, you'd be exhausted, and your vision would start to blur.

At first, my mother was the only one who'd refuse to eat Grandma's food, and I thought she was being paranoid. Then I started noticing that every time I went to Grandma's, I'd pass out on the couch or on the train on the way back to the city. When I stopped eating Grandma's food, my brother thought I was paranoid. But I stopped passing out, and pretty soon he stopped eating Grandma's food too.

But here's the thing: You don't want to believe your grandmother is poisoning you. You know that she loves you—there's no doubt of that—and she's so marvelously grandmotherly and charming. And you know that she would never want to poison you. So despite your better judgment, you eat the food until you've passed out so many times that you can't keep doubting yourself. Eventually, we would arrive for holidays at Grandma's with groceries and takeout, and she'd seem relieved that we wouldn't let her touch our plates. By then, her eyesight was starting to go, so she wouldn't notice the layer of crystalline powder atop that fancy lox she was giving you.

So the question became: How did we explain to guests, outsiders, that they shouldn't eat grandma's food? One time, maybe on Passover, my brother brought his new girlfriend, an actress. Grandma had promised not to prepare anything, and it seemed she'd kept her word, so we didn't mention the poisoning thing to the girlfriend, but after we'd eaten lunch, Grandma came out of the kitchen with these oatmeal raisin cookies that looked terrible. They were bulbous, like the baking soda had gone haywire. My brother's girlfriend ate two of them, maybe out of politeness. We looked on, aghast. She had a rehearsal in the city, but she passed out on the couch and missed it.

So why would Grandma poison us? Well, for some time, my mother has postulated that Grandma has Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a condition that causes caregivers to poison or injure their charges. Me? I'm sure that Grandma wasn't trying to hurt anyone. If she slipped you a Mickey it was because she didn't want you to leave—she loved to make people miss their train. "Stay the night, stay the night," she'd coo.

Other times, Grandma's concerns seemed more practical. My mother, when she moved back to Grandma's for a brief time, had many pets—turtles, dogs, hamsters, cats—that successively took ill and died. And there was Joe, the ex-paratrooper who was Grandma's last boyfriend. He got into the habit of blowing his pension checks in Atlantic City and mooching off Grandma until the next check arrived. Then he got a broken leg and we got all these hysterical calls from Grandma saying she was forced to wait on him hand and foot—and then he was dead.

And what would Grandma say? Well, even if she was inclined or in a condition to tell me why she did what she did, I don't think she'd be able to. She's always been a mystery, even to herself. There's this story she would tell: When she was a very young girl, a boy tried to kiss her in a closet, so she shoved him away and ran home and cried and cried. "Why, Grandma?" we would ask her. "Because," she would say, "I was in love with him!"

Grandma's father was an older man, tall and handsome, a widower who had been an equestrian back in Russia. Her mother was 17 when she married him. The couple had four daughters and one boy, who died very young. When the Depression hit, the father was called in to the office of the Brooklyn factory where he worked as a foreman: They had no choice; they would have to let him go. He begged for a job, any job, to support his family, which was how he became a "fireman," shoveling coal into a furnace. An explosion, a backfire, I think it's called, injured him badly, and he didn't come home. He disappeared. Three weeks after the accident, my grandmother went out to talk to a man who was sitting on the stoop across from their house. His face was covered in bandages. She asked why he hadn't come home, and he said, "I was afraid you wouldn't love me anymore." He was scarred for the rest of his life. I never met my great-grandfather Benjamin, my namesake.

Grandma's first husband, Irving—she was married to him through the 50s and 60s—was adored by everyone, just like her father. He was in business with some Italians, which is one way to describe his trade. After 20 years of marriage, she divorced him, and it wasn't until much later that I got the inkling it might have been because Irving had a frightening side.

In 1982, when he was 70 years old, Irving was in a car accident. He drove his Cadillac off the highway. He might have fallen asleep, or it might have been the fault of the screwdriver that was discovered in the steering column. His head was smashed up in the wreck, but he was a tough old Jew, and after four years he woke up and spent ten more fighting his paralysis before dying in his late 80s. Meanwhile, his money became the object of a convoluted lawsuit that resulted in Irving's business partners and second wife (who cared for him) getting most of his fortune. Throughout all that, Grandma would bemoan the fact that she'd left Irving. She'd say, "The kinds of things he did all day, you can't come home and be Mr. Nice Guy, no way."

Martha, Grandma's oldest child and my aunt, got cancer in her 20s. Grandma cared for her. Martha's disease might have killed her, but... well, I don't know. Aaron, Grandma's second husband, also died of cancer back in the 1970s. He was deaf, he hated television, and he yelled at children—Grandma said that she married him because "he was the only one who would have me." He smoked pipes. After his first operation, for throat cancer, he played ping-pong with me; he seemed happy and was less of a monster. He took up gardening. But no matter how much he ate, he kept losing weight and withered away. Or... Again, it could have just been the cancer.

Next up in the funerary procession was Norman, Grandma's youngest child and only son. So let's talk about him: Norman was a piece of shit. He was only eight years older than I was, and he tortured me when I was a kid. He had the most hideous laugh, like a pig squealing. Not a happy pig. Like a pig in pain. He'd threaten me with knives and steal and break my things. He'd try to convince me that he was going to kidnap me in the middle of the night and sell me to "the Arabs." Maybe all that was because he was envious of me; he was chunky and Jewish-looking, so Grandma, with her blue eyes and blond hair, found him repellent. In sharp contrast to Norman, the fleshy failure, I was a natural athlete with Gentile features and, therefore, her favorite. Once, I saw Grandma punish Norman by standing him in front of the open stove, turning up the broiler flames, and threatening to burn off his dick. He was maybe 12 at the time. She'd also cook him huge plates of food and offer them to him. He'd say no because he didn't want to get any fatter, but she'd keep pushing the food under his chin until he finally ate—and then berate him for being so fat.

Norman liked weapons. He collected things that killed, like crossbows and axes, and everyone was terrified of him. He would sometimes storm around the house with a bowie knife or machete, and the rest of us would cower in our rooms. When I was maybe seven, he covered my arm in methane and set it on fire, just to show me how powerful methane was and how lighting it wouldn't hurt me. It's true that I didn't feel any pain, though it did burn all the hair off my arm. Another time, when I was visiting Lawng Islund as a teenager, a bunch of other kids tackled me and kicked me over and over. My mother thought Norman had sent them.

Should I mention that he was a genius? He was; he could do anything. When I was eight, he walked me to Canal Street, just a few blocks from where I lived in Tribeca, to show me how he could buy computer parts and assemble a working machine in an afternoon, which he did.

In the late 80s, when he was 28, Norman was still living with Grandma, but he was kind of figuring things out: He had lost weight, he had a girlfriend, and he was thinking about some kind of career in computers, "networked computers," as they called what would become the internet back then. He was way into scuba diving too. He would sleep underwater in the tub with his equipment on, and sometimes he'd rent a boat and dive down to some wreck and take photos.

The day of the accident, he was scheduled to go out on a rented boat, but Grandma didn't want him to go—she always complained about how expensive it was—so she slipped him something. I think. He was feeling pretty out of it that morning; he thought maybe he was sick. His partner persuaded him to go out anyway, and then there was a problem with the configuration of Norman's equipment when he was underwater. Maybe it was a malfunction, or maybe it was his own fault; he had customized all his gear (because he was a genius). His diving partner swam to the surface alone, instead of sharing his tank with Norman in a "buddy-system" ascent. We don't know exactly why Norman stayed down there. It might have been that he thought he didn't have enough oxygen to attempt a "controlled emergency" ascent, which is when you exhale all the way up. Or it might have been that he was entangled in the U-boat wreck he and his partner were investigating. Or he might have just been too out of it to save himself. There are these flags that divers can fire up toward the surface to alert the rescue diver, who's supposed to be ready to go on the deck of the boat, and Norman did send up his flag. But this was Lawng Islund, where rules about keeping rescue divers on boats aren't taken too seriously, and Norman died down there, watching that fucking flag wave.

Then there was my wife's miscarriage. Funny thing about that. Or not "funny," I guess, but I forgot about it until I decided to write this story and I was going over some old notes. When we announced my wife's pregnancy, Grandma freaked out about how there'd be another mouth to feed and we couldn't afford it. We visited her just before my wife miscarried, and even though my wife knew to stay away from her food, everyone slips up a little from time to time. And, well... it was late in the pregnancy for a miscarriage. And the dates line up. But it could be a coincidence.

Later, when we did have a child, Grandma came over to celebrate, bearing a present for the baby: a pair of medical scissors—sharp, pointed, big medical scissors. On another visit, she brought us beets she had bought. I was like, "Grandma, why are you giving me 15 cans of beets?" She had recipes, beets this and beets that, and lots and lots of them included sunflower seeds too. She was enormously proud of one invention: beet-and-sunflower-seed ice cream. You couldn't top it, nutrition-wise, she said. Look it up. I did: "Canned beets and sunflower seeds," I typed into my computer. "URGENT PRODUCT RECALL," Google spat back. Everything she gave us should have been pulled from the shelves.

Sometimes when I tell these stories, I have the feeling that people think I should have done something. Well, it was difficult psychologically to piece all of this together, and as a kid, I didn't understand what was going on. Before Grandma put me to bed she'd sometimes serve me this really rich hot chocolate that looked oily and thin. And when I woke up it would be 24 or even 72 hours later. Three or four times we rushed to the hospital in the middle of the night because I was having trouble breathing. But it wasn't until my 30s that I connected all this and it dawned on me that sleeping for three days is not normal or OK, and that the only times I woke up in the middle of the night unable to breathe, I was at Grandma's.

And even when I did figure it out, so what? After Joe, Grandma's last boyfriend, died, I went to the cops and told them I thought Grandma was involved. They said, "Whaddya want us to do about it?"

And now, once again, I feel like I'm supposed to care. Like there should be closure. Either I purge my past, forgive her, and arrive at a higher vibrational state, or I find proof of what she's done over the years and expose her once and for all. I'd always planned to search her house one last time, but now the house is gone. And nobody is exhuming any bodies, and Grandma doesn't even know what Grandma did. And there's not going to be any grand finale. And as I sat there listening to Grandma sing with my children—not quite crying, I wasn't quite crying—I realized that I didn't care what had happened, that nobody cares what happened, that caring is for cops on CSI and doctors on ER and muscle-bound Marines in the movies.

Not long ago, I was talking to a friend I've told about Grandma. My friend casually mentioned that Grandma could have accidentally killed me, which surprised me. That wasn't accurate, I said.

"But didn't you have trouble breathing? Didn't you rush to the hospital in the middle of the night? She wasn't trying to hurt you, she was trying to manage you, but she could have hurt you."

Sunday, January 29, 2017

“As I walked the extraordinary landscape of Dartmoor, I looked at the trees and the rocks and the hills and I could see the personality in those forms . . . then they metamorphosed under my pencil into faeries, goblins and trolls.”

—BRIAN FROUD, BRITISH FANTASY ILLUSTRATOR

HAVANA
CUBA

Havana's unique musical scene blends West African and Spanish traditions with the sounds of jazz—the latter brought here during the city's 1950s heyday as party central for American expats. The year's highlight is December's International Jazz Festival, with musicians from around the world performing alongside Cuba's revered old-time stars.

CHRISTMAS MARKET
RATHAUSPLATZ, VIENNA, AUSTRIA

There is no better time than now to visit the Christkindlmarkt, or Christmas market, in December at Vienna's Rathaus (City Hall), where the scents of gingerbread and chestnuts and the sounds of carols fill the air. This is Vienna's largest and oldest Christmas market, dating from 1298, with hundreds of festive outdoor stands selling traditional food, drinks, and handcrafted gifts.

GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE
answer below

Q: The Temple of Luxor sits next to the Nile River, and is just one of the many massive temples and necropolises found near the modern city of Luxor. When this was the capital of Egypt's New Kingdom (from the 16th to the 11th century B.C.), what was this city called?

a) Thebes
b) Cairo
c) Alexandria
d) Giza

a. As the capital of ancient Egypt's New Kingdom, the city was known as Thebes.

Be happy in the moment, that's enough. Each moment is all we need, not more.

-- MOTHER TERESA

Forget whatever should be forgotten, so that you can remember what should be remembered.

-- writer Bing Xin

Q: What is your I.Q.?

Physicist Stephen Hawking: I have no idea. People who boast about their I.Q. are losers.

Do you have doubts about life? Are you unsure if it is really worth the trouble? Look at the sky: that is for you. Look at each person's face as you pass them on the street: those faces are for you. And the street itself, and the ground under the street and the ball of fire underneath the ground: all these things are for you. They are as much for you as they are for other people. Remember this when you wake up in the morning and think you have nothing. Stand up and face the east. Now praise the sky and praise the light within each person under the sky. It's okay to be unsure. But praise, praise, praise.

-- MIRANDA JULY

If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be.

Mailmen and dogs aren't supposed to get along. But for years, Tashi, a black Lab from Boulder, Colorado, has happily greeted letter carrier Jeff Kramer with a wagging tail. "He's just a really friendly dog," said Kramer. Now 14 and suffering from stiff joints, Tashi can no longer climb down the porch steps to say "hi" to Kramer. Eager to help his old friend, the mailman turned handyman and used his day off to build a ramp for Tashi. Now the dog can go in and out of his house as he pleases. "It's really a gift," says owner Karen Dimetrosky.

Friday, January 27, 2017

Click on the picture to goto a facebook page dedicated to him and his art. Tons of homoerotic&#185 litho's available.Not Porn!

BIOGRAPHY: Drawing is one of Steve Walker's earliest childhood memories. He recollects drawing pictures from about the age of three or four years old. Drawing came naturally to the Toronto artist, and his love of the art form continued into his adulthood. As a self taught artist, Walker only began painting after a trip to Europe when he was 25 years old. During the trip, he spent much of his time in Europe touring the great galleries and museums. In his words it was the first time he was exposed to great painting, and the first time he recognized the potential power of the art form. "I was moved by something that I was capable of doing," he said. His first paintings were done in a somewhat secretive way, as he had no intention of exhibiting or selling, and had no aspirations of becoming a professional artist.

Producing art about his life and the lives of those around him is as natural to Walker as his first childhood drawings. As a gay man, Walker is acutely aware that he is living during a period of history that is both the best of times and the worst of times. There is more freedom and acceptance for gay men and women, while at the same time AIDS has devastated the gay population.

But Walker's paintings are not about gay people or homosexuality. He describes his art as being about love, hate, pain, joy, touch, communication, beauty, loneliness, attraction, hope, despair, life and death. His art includes universal themes regardless of race, gender, socio-economic class, culture or sexual orientation. However, his work is unique because he conveys these themes through the subjects in his paintings, young gay men. "Remove the gender of the painting's subjects and what we have is human relationships in general, and one's relationship to the world itself," he said. "As a homosexual I have been moved, educated, and inspired by works that deal with a heterosexual context. Why would I assume that a heterosexual would be incapable of appreciating work that speaks to common themes in life, as seen through my eyes as a gay man. If the heterosexual population is unable to do this, then the loss is theirs, not mine."

If Walker were an abstract painter or a landscape artist, he says his sexual orientation wouldn't matter. But since his paintings are about gay life, his sexual orientation becomes more important than his cultural background, age, or nationality.

The focus of his paintings often depict sadness and loneliness to reflect the reality that much of anyone's life is sad and lonely. Walker often portrays people in relationships as separate entities because that is the way he views them. He also uses a small and consistent palette of colours because he is comfortable with them and the colours provide the desired results. "Colour is very powerful and a little can go a long way if used effectively," he said. "Some colours are very exciting to me, while others are quite offensive. Painting flesh is very exciting because of the huge variations possible within a very small colour range."

Walker's artworks are very large, always measuring 36" by 48". He creates large paintings because he believes that a large image is more appealing than a smaller one. "Whether it's a television screen, cinema screen, or an image in a magazine, the size of the image connotes a degree of importance," he said. Walker said belonging to an oppressed minority group has been a driving force in creating his art. "Any minority wants and needs to find artistic voices that reflect their own personal situations, and, in doing so, validate and record their lives and cultures for themselves, and for the larger world," he said.

"Someone to be loved"

The art above is The Wizard's Favourite. I have a framed print.

Walker said he experiences many small rewards during the creative process. "After hours of painting, I stand back and look at something that wasn't there before -- a hand, face, or piece of fabric will exist where there was once a blank canvas," he said.

As an artist, Walker said it's exciting to be working at a point in history where there is an audience ready to appreciate and consume his creations. "It is very rare to find success as an artist in your lifetime," he said. "My work will be around long after me, but seeing it affect people at the time that I am creating it is very rewarding."

In recent years Steve Walker's work has been exhibited in galleries in Toronto, Montreal, New York, Philadelphia and Key West.

The gay community of North America has responded very positively to Walker's art. "I am very aware of the appreciation from a group of people who recognize the time, energy and talent devoted to a body of work that speaks specifically to them but at the same time exists in the larger world that we all live in," he said.

The point of living is to be alive. To experience being alive. You can't get the full experience unless you involve yourself fully and live in the life, but the point of the life is not the things that vex you, it's the experience of them. you, yourself, are an entity beyond this lifetime and these experiences, your job is to dive into the life and live it. We get full of expectation and taking things for granted. We load ourselves with the burden of directing our lives so that when something outside our direction or desiring happens we feel cheated.

Yet when something like this happens it's usually something we could never have orchestrated deliberately and yet which gives us an experience so deep and unique and poignant that we are gifted ultimately with a depth of feeling and learning that we hadn't had since childhood. You have the opportunity to learn a whole new life suddenly. Something happens to catastrophically change your world. It's upsetting, it's shattering, it's overwhelming, but it persists. As you persist as well eventually you overcome the challenge and learn to work around it or over it or with it instead of against it. Or all of that, and still resisting it as well.

Whether it's a sudden illness or disability or the total loss of your home to catastrophe, or the loss of your loved ones, it's a hardness humans have faced forever to some degree and it's made us so strong that we dominate our entire planet and even venture into it's satellites and neighbor planets with our machines.

Nobody but a balanced and loving power who wants us to be ground to a sparkle like fine diamonds would ever put us through these tragedies, so that is what happens, outside of your plans, within a greater plan for your spirit, to shine it and give it strength.

However you see the metaphysical world, whether by higher power or personal power, most people acknowledge the idea of the part of them they call "I" is enduring beyond the physical state. That part of us is what grows, learns, becomes wiser and gentler and more loving with the lessons we learn. With strength comes grace.

She spends $15,000 and feels pretty good about the results. On her way home, she stops at a news stand to buy a newspaper. Before leaving, she says to the clerk, "I hope you don't mind my asking, but how old do you think I am?"

"About 32," is the reply.

"Nope! I'm exactly 50," the woman says happily.

A little while later she goes into McDonald's and asks the counter girl the very same question. The girl replies, "I guess about 29."

The woman replies, "Nope I'm 50."

Now she's feeling really good about herself. She stops in a drug store on her way down the street. She goes up to the counter to get some mints and asks the clerk this burning question. The clerk responds, "Oh, I'd say 30."

Again she proudly responds, "I am 50, but thank you."

While waiting for the bus to go home, she asks an old man waiting next to her the same question.

He replies, "Lady, I'm 78 and my eye sight is going. Although, when I was young, there was a sure way to tell how old a woman was. It sounds very forward, but it requires you to let me put my hands under your bra. Then, and only then can I tell you EXACTLY how old you are."

They wait in silence on the empty street until curiosity gets the best of her. She finally blurts out, "What the hell, go ahead."

He slips both of his hands under her blouse and begins to feel around very slowly and carefully. He bounces and weighs each breast...He gently pinches each nipple. He pushes her breasts together and rubs them against each other.

After a couple of minutes of this, she says, "Okay, okay...How old am I?"

He completes one last squeeze of her breasts, removes his hands, and says, "Madam, you are 50."

Stunned and amazed, the woman says, "That was incredible, how could you tell?"

Thursday, January 26, 2017

After three weeks in the Garden of Eden, God came to visit Eve. "So, how is everything going?" inquired God..

"It is all so beautiful, God," she replied. "The sunrises and sunsets are breathtaking, the smells, the sights, everything is wonderful, but I have just one problem. It is these breasts you have given me. The middle one pushes the other two out and I am constantly knocking them with my arms, catching them on branches and snagging them on bushes. They are a real pain," reported Eve.

And Eve went on to tell God that since many other parts of her body came in pairs, such as her limbs, eyes, ears, etc..........she felt that having only two breasts might leave her body more "symmetrically balanced," as she put it.

"That is a fair point," replied God, "But it was my first shot at this, you know. I gave the animals six breasts, so I figured that you needed only half of those, but I see that you are right. I will fix it up right away."

And God reached down, removed the middle breast and tossed it into the bushes.

Three weeks passed and God once again visited Eve in the Garden of Eden.

Well, Eve, how is my favorite creation?"

"Just fantastic," she replied, "But for one oversight on your part. You see, all the animals are paired off. The ewe has a ram and the cow has her bull. All the animals have a mate except me. I feel so alone."

God thought for a moment and said, "You know, Eve, you are right. How could I have overlooked this? You do need a mate and I will immediately create a man from a part of you.. Now let's see............where did I put the useless boob?"

One day a guy dies and finds himself in hell. As he is wallowing in despair, he has his first meeting with the devil..

Satan: Why so glum?

Guy: What do you think? I'm in hell!

Satan: Hell's not so bad. We actually have a lot of fun down here. You a drinking man?

Guy: Sure, I love to drink.

Satan: Well, you're going to love Mondays then. On Mondays that's all we do is drink. Whiskey, Tequila, Guinness, Wine Coolers, Diet Tab and Fresca...we drink till we throw up and then we drink some more! And we don't worry about getting a hangover, because you're dead anyway.

Guy: Gee, that sounds great!

Satan: You a smoker?

Guy: You better believe it!

Satan: All right! You're gonna love Tuesdays. We get the finest cigars from all over the world and smoke our lungs out. If you get cancer - no biggie, you're already dead, remember?

3. Is it possible that your heterosexuality is just a phase that you may grow out of?

4. Is it possible that your heterosexuality stems from a neurotic fear of others of the same sex?

5. Isn't it possible that all you need is a good gay lover?

6. Heterosexuals have histories of failure in gay relationships. Do you think you may have turned to heterosexuality in fear of rejection?

7. If you've never slept with a person of the same sex, how do you know you wouldn't prefer it?

8. If your heterosexuality is normal, why are a disproportionate number of mental patients heterosexual?

9. With whom have you discussed your heterosexual tendencies? How did they react?

10. Your heterosexuality doesn't offend me as long as you don't try to force it on me. Why do people feel compelled to seduce others into your sexual orientation?

11. If you choose to nurture children, would you want them to be heterosexual, knowing the problems they would face?

12. The great majority of child molesters are heterosexuals. Do you consider it safe to expose your children to heterosexual teachers?

13. Why do you insist on being so obvious, and making a public spectacle of your heterosexuality? Can't you just be what you are and keep it quiet?

14. How can you ever hope to become a whole person if you limit yourself to a compulsive, exclusive heterosexual object choice, and remain unwilling to explore and develop your normal, natural, God-given homosexual potential?

15. Heterosexuals are noted for assigning themselves and each other to narrowly restricted sex roles. Why do you cling to such unhealthy role-playing?

16. How can you enjoy a fully satisfying sexual experience or deep emotional rapport with a person of the opposite sex, when the obvious physical, biological, and temperamental differences between you are so vast? How can a man understand what pleases a woman sexually, or vice-versa?

17. Why do heterosexuals place so much emphasis on sex?

18. With all the societal support marriage receives, the divorce rate is spiraling. Why are there so few stable relationships among heterosexuals?

19. How could the human race survive if everyone were heterosexual like you, considering the menace of overpopulation?

20. There seem to be very few happy heterosexuals. Techniques have been developed with which you might be able to change if you want to. Have you ever tried therapy?

21. A disproportionate number of criminals, welfare recipients, and other irresponsible or anti-social types are heterosexual. Why would you want to hire a heterosexual for a responsible position?

22. Do heterosexuals hate and/or distrust other of their own sex? Is that what makes them heterosexual?

23. Why are heterosexuals so promiscuous?

24. Why do you make a point of attributing heterosexuality to famous people? Is it to justify your own heterosexuality?

25. Could you really trust a heterosexual therapist/counselor to be objective and unbiased? Don't you fear that s/he might be inclined to influence you in the direction of his/her own leanings?

Wednesday, January 25, 2017

Mary Tyler Moore, 80, whose comic timing and all-American beauty made her a leading TV star and Emmy Award-winning actress before she took on dramatic roles in films, and whose 1970s situation comedy about the life of a professional single woman was considered a cultural and feminist milestone, has died.

Mara Buxbaum, a representative of Moore, announced the death in a statement but provided no details. The actress struggled with diabetes much of her life and underwent brain surgery in 2011 to remove a benign tumor from the lining tissue around her brain.

Moore, who played the spunky housewife on The Dick Van Dyke Show in the 1960s and an idealistic career woman on The Mary Tyler Moore Show in the 1970s, was an actress of dynamic range and accomplishment. She won a 1980 Tony Award for playing a quadriplegic sculptor in Whose Life Is It Anyway? and an Emmy for her role as a villainous orphanage director in the TV production Stolen Babies (1993). She was nominated for an Oscar as the frosty matriarch in Ordinary People (1980), Robert Redford's directorial debut.

Moore's production company, MTM Enterprises, created groundbreaking TV shows during the 1970s and 1980s, including Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere. But she was primarily considered one of television's finest comic actresses because of her roles on two of the most popular sitcoms of all time.

She received two Emmy Awards for her role as Laura Petrie, the comely and slightly scatterbrained wife of a TV comedy writer, on The Dick Van Dyke Show, which aired on CBS from 1961 to 1966. Moore, sporting capri pants and a Jackie Kennedy bouffant, held her own against veteran entertainers such as Van Dyke (as her husband), Morey Amsterdam and Rose Marie. Moore said she always thought of herself as "a new kind of comedian — the funny straight woman."

Carl Reiner, one of the show's creative forces, once said of Moore that "she had a ping in her voice that got to me the first time I heard her." The sexual spark she generated with her TV husband was a novel twist on previous TV homemakers, who were generally portrayed as maternal and gowned in skirts and pearls.

After The Dick Van Dyke Show ended at a peak moment in its popularity, Moore made several Hollywood films, including the musicals Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) opposite Julie Andrews and Change of Habit (1969) with Elvis Presley. She re-emerged on the small screen with Mary Tyler Moore, which aired on CBS from 1970 to 1977.

Often considered one of the most literate sitcoms of its era, Mary Tyler Moore was also one of the first sitcoms to have a single working woman as the lead character. Its appeal was often attributed to its feminist consciousness, with Moore playing a fictional Minneapolis assistant TV news producer named Mary Richards who navigates a career, friendships and single life.

The show was lauded for its realistic portrayal of the modern woman — one whose life focused on work, not family, and one in which men were colleagues, not husbands or love interests. It touched on subjects once considered taboo, such as birth control.

"Thirty-three, unmarried and unworried — Mary is the liberated woman's ideal," TV Guide wrote in 1973.

But, primarily, the show was funny. It even dared to joke about death. In the episode "Chuckles Bites the Dust," the entire newsroom — except Mary Richards — gets the giggles after a clown's demise. At the funeral, only Mary bursts out laughing at the minister's eulogy: "A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants."

Moore said that the episode tested her — she was laughing at the wrong times —and that she completed filming only through "sheer terror of losing the faith the cast had placed in me."

"Cash, cheque or charge?" I asked, after folding items the woman wished to purchase. As she fumbled for her wallet I noticed a remote control for a television set in her purse. "So, do you always carry your TV remote?" I asked. "No," she replied, "but my husband refused to come shopping with me, and I figured this was the most evil thing I could do to him legally."

UNDERSTANDING WOMEN (A MAN'S PERSPECTIVE)

I know I'm not going to understand women. I'll never understand how you can take boiling hot wax, pour it onto your upper thigh, rip the hair out by the root, and still be afraid of a spider.

MARRIAGE SEMINAR

While attending a Marriage Seminar dealing with communication, Tom and his wife Grace listened to the instructor, "It is essential that husbands and wives know each other's likes and dislikes." He addressed the man, "Can you name your wife's favorite flower?" Tom leaned over, touched his wife's arm gently and whispered, "It's Homepride, isn't it?

CIGARETTES AND TAMPONS

A man walks into a pharmacy and wanders up and down the aisles. The sales girl notices him and asks him if she can help him. He answers that he is looking for a box of tampons for his wife. She directs him down the correct aisle. A few minutes later, he deposits a huge bag of cotton balls and a ball of string on the counter. She says, confused, "Sir, I thought you were looking for some tampons for your wife? He answers, " You see, it's like this, yesterday, I sent my wife to the store to get me a carton of cigarettes, and she came back with a tin of tobacco and some rolling papers; cause it's sooo-ooo--oo-ooo much cheaper. So, I figure if I have to roll my own .......... so does she.

WIFE VS. HUSBAND

A couple drove down a country road for several miles, not saying a word. An earlier discussion had led to an argument and neither of them wanted to concede their position. As they passed a barnyard of mules, goats, and pigs, the husband asked sarcastically, "Relatives of yours?" "Yep," the wife replied, "in-laws."

W O R D S

A husband read an article to his wife about how many words women use a day... 30,000 to a man's 15,000. The wife replied, "The reason has to be because we have to repeat everything to men... The husband then turned to his wife and asked, "What?"

CREATION

A man said to his wife one day, "I don't know how you can be so stupid and so beautiful all at the same time. " The wife responded, "Allow me to explain. God made me beautiful so you would be attracted to me; God made me stupid so I would be attracted to you!

WHO DOES WHAT

A man and his wife were having an argument about who should brew the coffee each morning. The wife said, "You should do it, because you get up first, and then we don't have to wait as long to get our coffee." The husband said, " You are in charge of cooking around here and you should do it, because that is your job, and I can just wait for my coffee." Wife replies, "No, you should do it, and besides, it is in the Bible that the man should do the coffee." Husband replies, "I can't believe that, show me." So she fetched the Bible, and opened the New Testament and showed him at the top of several pages, that it indeed says.........."HEBREWS"

The Silent Treatment

A man and his wife were having some problems at home and were giving each other the silent treatment. Suddenly, the man realized that the next day, he would need his wife to wake him at 5:00 AM for an early morning business flight. Not wanting to be the first to break the silence (and LOSE), he wrote on a piece of paper, "Please wake me at 5:00 AM." He left it where he knew she would find it. The next morning, the man woke up, only to discover it was 9:00 AM and he had missed his flight. Furious, he was about to go and see why his wife hadn't wakened him, when he noticed a piece of paper by the bed. The paper said, "It is 5:00 AM. Wake up." Men are not equipped for these kinds of contests. God may have created man before woman, but there is always a rough draft before the masterpiece.

SEND THIS POST TO SMART WOMEN WHO NEED A LAUGH AND TO MEN YOU THINK CAN HANDLE IT !

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Bubba Joe's first military assignment was to a military induction center, and, because he was a good talker, they assigned him the duty of advising new recruits about the government benefits, especially the GI insurance to which they were entitled.

Before long the Captain in charge of the induction center began noticing that Bubba was getting a 99% sign up for the top GI insurance.

This was odd, because it would cost these poor inductees nearly $30.00 per month more for their higher coverage than what the government was already granting.

The Captain decided that he would sit in the back of the room and observe Bubba's sales pitch. Bubba Joe stood up before his latest group of inductees and stated, "If you have the normal GI insurance and go to Iraq and are killed, the government pays your beneficiary $6,000."

"If you take out the supplemental GI insurance, which will cost you an additional $30.00 per month, the government pays your beneficiary $200,000."

Four brothers left home for college, and they became successful doctors and lawyers and prospered. Some years later, they chatted after having dinner together. They discussed the gifts they were able to give their elderly mother who lived far away in another city.

The first said, "I had a big house built for Mama."

The second said, "I had a hundred thousand dollar theater built in the house."

The third said "I had my Mercedes dealer deliver an SL600 to her."

The fourth said, "You know how Mama loved reading the Bible and you know she can't read anymore because she can't see very well. I met this preacher who told me about a parrot that can recite the entire Bible. It took twenty preachers 12 years to teach him. I had to pledge to contribute $100,000 a year for twenty years to the church, but it was worth it. Mama just has to name the chapter and verse and the parrot will recite it."

The other brothers were impressed. After the holidays Mom sent out her Thank You notes.

She wrote: "Milton, the house you built is so huge. I live in only one room, but I have to clean the whole house. Thanks anyway."

"Marvin, I am too old to travel. I stay home, I have my groceries delivered, so I never use the Mercedes. The thought was good. Thanks."

"Michael, you gave me an expensive theater with Dolby sound,! it could hold 50 people, but all my friends are dead, I've lost my hearing and I'm nearly blind. I'll never use it. Thank you for the gesture just the same."

"Dearest Melvin, you were the only son to have the good sense to give a little thought to your gift. The chicken was delicious. Thank you."

I came across this list of alleged replies students wrote in history and religious education exam papers...some are quite cheerful and believable.

1. The Pyramids are a range of mountains between France and Spain!

2. Solomon one of David's sons had 500 wives and 500 porcupines!

3. The government of England was a mockery. Henry VIII found walking difficult because he had an abbess on his knee.

4. Another great author was john Milton. He wrote Paradise Lost. Then when his wife dies he wrote Paradise Regained.

5. Abraham Lincoln became America's greatest Precedent. His mother died in infancy and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands.When he was President he wore a tall silk hat and said,"in onion there is strength"!

6. France was in a very serious state, the revolution was accomplished before it happened. The Marseillaise was ther theme song of the revolution and it catapulted into Napoleon.

7. Samuel Morse invented a code for telepathy. Louis Pasteur invented a cure for rabbis. Charles Darwin was a naturalist ho wrote "Organ of the Species". Madman Curie discovered radium and Karl Marx became one of the Marx brothers.

8. Another tale tells how William Tell, who shot an arrow through an apple whilst standing on his son's head!

9. Achillies appears in The Illiad, by Homer. Homer also wrote the Oddity in which Penelope was the last hardship that Ulysees endured on his journey!

1) No matter how hard you try, you can't baptize cats.
2) When your Mom is mad at your Dad, don't let her brush your hair.
3) If your sister hits you, don't hit her back. They always catch the second person.
4) Never ask your 3-year old brother to hold a tomato.
5) You can't trust dogs to watch your food.
6) Don't sneeze when someone is cutting your hair.
7) Never hold a Dust-Buster and a cat at the same time.
8) You can't hide a piece of broccoli in a glass of milk.
9) Don't wear polka-dot underwear under white shorts.
10) The best place to be when you're sad is Grandpa's lap.

GREAT TRUTHS THAT ADULTS HAVE LEARNED:

1) Raising teenagers is like nailing Jell-O to a tree.
2) Wrinkles don't hurt.
3) Families are like fudge...mostly sweet, with a few nuts.
4) Today's mighty oak is just yesterday's nut that held its ground.
5) Laughing is good exercise. It's like jogging on the inside.
6) Middle age is when you choose your cereal for the fiber, not the toy.

GREAT TRUTHS ABOUT GROWING OLD

1) Growing up is mandatory; growing old is optional.
2) Forget the health food. I need all the preservatives I can get.
3) When you fall down, you wonder what else you can do while you're down there.
4) You're getting old when you get the same sensation from a rocking chair that you once got from a roller coaster.
5) It's frustrating when you know all the answers but nobody bothers to ask you the questions.
6) Time may be a great healer, but it's a lousy beautician.
7) Wisdom comes with age, but sometimes age comes alone.

THE FOUR STAGES OF LIFE:

1) You believe in Santa Claus.
2) You don't believe in Santa Claus.
3) You are Santa Claus.
4) You look like Santa Claus.

SUCCESS:

At age 4 success is . . . not peeing in your pants.
At age 12 success is . . . having friends.
At age 16 success is . . . having a drivers license.
At age 35 success is . . . having money.
At age 50 success is . . . having money.
At age 70 success is . . . having a drivers license.
At age 75 success is . . . having friends.
At age 80 success is . . . not peeing in your pants.

Monday, January 23, 2017

The house was very, very dark, so the paramedic asked Kathleen, a 3-year-old girl, to hold a flashlight high over her Mommy so he could see while he helped deliver the baby. Very diligently, Kathleen did as she was asked. Heidi pushed and pushed, and after a little while Connor was born.

The paramedic lifted him by his little feet and spanked him on his bottom. Connor began to cry. The paramedic then thanked Kathleen for her help and asked the wide-eyed 3-year old what she thought about what she had just witnessed.

Kathleen quickly responded, "He shouldn't have crawled in there in the first place ......... smack his ass again!

She's the shapely sprite who has become a Disney icon second only to Mickey Mouse himself. And yet Miss Bell has largely been a woman of mystery. Where did she come from? Where are her fellow fairies? And the burning question: Was she REALLY modeled on Marilyn Monroe?

Fortunately, the Disney Insider has done some sleuthing and learned, more or less, everything you ever wanted to know about Tinker Bell.

Tink originally appeared in J.M. Barrie's play, "Peter Pan." Well, sort of - onstage, the pixie never appeared in person, but was traditionally represented by a beam of light. When Walt Disney decided to film "Peter Pan," how to represent Tinker Bell was one of the great dilemmas to be resolved. Ultimately, Disney and his animators decided to put the mischievous fairy on the screen - but to keep with tradition in having her "voice" be a tinkling bell that only Peter can understand.

Although Tinker Bell's vavoom figure and winsome blonde appearance have led generations of moviegoers to compare her to Marilyn Monroe, animator Marc Davis actually modeled her on actress Margaret Kerry. The Studio was quick to point out that although Tink might LOOK like Ms. Kerry, her capricious and sometimes downright mean personality had nothing to do with the actress!

"Peter Pan" was a hit, but it was Tinker Bell who went on to become a cultural touchstone. The pixie proved so popular that she became something of an ambassador for Disney. In the process, her image has become less jealous pint-sized femme fatale and more dispenser of pixie dust, although that touch of mischief still remains part of her appeal.

These days you can see Tink at the opening of "The Wonderful World of Disney," in the air at Disney theme park firework shows, and on every Disney DVD. She's prominently featured in the 50th Anniversary parade at Disneyland, "Walt Disney's Parade of Dreams," and Tinker Bell costumes and toys rival Disney Princess gear in popularity among little girls.

Although she's a beloved and instantly recognized character, there are many unanswered mysteries about Tinker Bell, stemming all the way back to "Peter Pan." Where did she come from? Who are her friends? Where does Tinker Bell go when she isn't hanging out with Peter Pan and the Lost Boys? These are questions that are never answered by Barrie, or by the film. But Tink is such a vivid presence that for more than 50 years, children have wondered about her.

These burning questions led the Disney team to develop a detailed story about Tinker Bell and the world from which she comes. Tinker Bell's world will be unveiled in a story first introduced in the novel "Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg" (available this month) by Gail Carson Levine of "Ella Enchanted" fame. The books feature illustrations by David Christiana. There's also a global Web site at DisneyFairies.com where we can meet the fairies and a get a glimpse of their world and pastimes.

"I was so glad when the people at Disney Publishing invited me to be part of the project," Ms. Levine commented. "To enter the world of Peter Pan and weave in a new landscape has been an enormous honor. I'll be thrilled if readers join the fairies' quest and go on clapping and believing and keeping Never Land young forever."

We learn that Tinker Bell is, in fact, a talented tinker - good at mending metal objects with her little hammer. This refers all the way back to a little joke in Barrie's Peter Pan - Peter claims that Tink is a common "tinker" sort of fairy. Tinkers, in Victorian England, were traveling tinsmiths.

By exploring Tink's world, the artists of Disney hope that they will give the enduring fairy new dimension - and a new place in the hearts of children (and adults) everywhere. If you believe in fairies, clap your hands for Tinker Bell!

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About The Wizard...

I was born September 12, 1962 in St. Boniface, MB Canada. I live in Saskatoon, SK. I have one child, a son, of whom I am incredibly proud. I attended Royal school in Charleswood and after a couple of years at St. Paul's High School, I graduated from Shaftesbury High. I attended Red River Community College in Winnipeg and received a certificate in Business Administration, with a Major in Marketing and Management. I attended the University of Manitoba, earning multiple certifications in LAN Administration and industry credentials from Novell, (CNA); Microsoft, (MCP); and CompTia, (A+). February 25, 2002 was an important turning point in my life and I was re-born.

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Dwell not on the past. Use it to illustrate a point, then leave it behind. Nothing really matters except what you do now in this instant of time. From this moment onward you can be an entirely different person, filled with love and understanding, ready with an outstretched hand, uplifted and positive in every thought and deed. --Eileen Caddy